Wireless communications may be roughly divided into public systems and private systems. Public systems are integrated portions of the Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) and must accept any paying customer. Such public systems are typically very large and complex. In the United States, the public systems operate according to well known communications standards, such as ANSI/TIA/EIA-136, GSM, or the like. In contrast, private systems do not need to accept any customer willing to pay, but may instead limit membership, such as to employees of a corporation. These private systems are typically small and less complex than public systems.
Typically, in public wireless communications systems mobile stations are identified by Mobile Identification Numbers (MIN), Mobile Directory Numbers (MDN), and Electronic Serial Numbers (ESN). The MDN may be thought of as the "phone number" of the mobile station. The MIN represents the identification of the particular mobile station to the wireless communications system and may be thought of as the "logical unit identity" of the mobile station within the public wireless communications system. The ESN is a physical identity indicator, such as serial number unique to the physical mobile station, and plays an important part in anti-cloning efforts. The details of the use and function of these identifications are well known in the art.
Typically, when a user establishes a subscription account in a public wireless communications system, the MIN and ESN are entered into a database within the public wireless communications system and the corresponding MDN is assigned. In addition, various pieces of subscriber billing information and the like are entered. It is common for the mobile station's ESN and MIN to uniquely identify the mobile station for the various public wireless communications systems that together form a Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN). For security reasons, the sensitive information of the MIN and the ESN should be known to as few people as possible.
It is common to allow mobile stations to roam into other geographic areas and still continue to operate. In order to facilitate roaming, it is common to use Home Location Registers (HLR) and Visitor Location Registers (VLR) in a manner well known in the art.
In recent years, there has been much interest in building private wireless office telephone systems (WOTS) by corporations or other large entities. Private wireless office telephone systems employ many concepts and features used by public wireless communications systems and may be thought of as a scaled down versions thereof. As with public wireless communications system, a private wireless communications system, such as a WOTS, must be able to properly identify the mobile stations that are entitled to its services. In addition, the private wireless communications system should be able to interface with the public wireless communications system, so as to be able to originate, terminate, hand-off calls, and the like.
The main advantage of a WOTS is that it allows people to use wireless telephones in an office or other localized area rather than a desk phone with a fixed connection to the telephone system. This allows people to have mobility within the office, yet remain accessible by phone. In order to realize fully the potential of the wireless office telephone system, it is desirable to also interface the WOTS with public systems. Interfacing with the public systems allows subscribers of the WOTS to use a single mobile station in both systems. That is, a subscriber of a private wireless telephone system could use the same mobile station when "roaming" in the public system.
Both public and private wireless communications systems maintain permanent subscriber profiles, typically indicating which services the subscriber is entitled to, the identity of the individual user, billing information, and the like. This information is permanent in the sense that the subscriber profile is intended to be maintained for as long as the mobile station is subscribed to the particular wireless communications system, not just for as long as the mobile station is registered with that system. The information may of course be updated during its lifetime.
Under the prior art, the creation of a subscriber profile in a private wireless communications system requires manual entry of at least the MIN and the ESN. However, as discussed above, the fewer people who know a mobile station's MIN and ESN, the better. Thus to eliminate even one person who knows those numbers is advantageous. More importantly, the manual entry of MINs and ESNs is a time consuming task that is prone to error during manual entry. This is particularly true for businesses that are just setting up a new private wireless communications system that will use existing mobile stations currently subscribed to a public wireless communications system.